


Lonely No More

by satb31



Series: 1,000 Follower Giveaway Fics [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Present Tense, School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 23:50:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1244935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satb31/pseuds/satb31
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Combeferre and Grantaire are both teachers, and both lonely — until they are paired up at a faculty meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lonely No More

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mirambella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirambella/gifts).



> A response to the following prompt: Grantaire/Combeferre, Modern AU: sexy teachers dating with shy Combeferre and unsure R.

Combeferre teaches chemistry.

It isn’t the job he’d envisioned for himself when he was a college student, cramming for O-Chem finals and spending hours in the lab. But he although he had always loved the subject, he had known he wasn’t cut out for the corporate world, developing pharmaceuticals or chemical weapons — different ways that chemistry can be used to kill.

So he had decided to become a teacher.

He never regrets it — he loves the work, loves the excited looks the kids get on their faces when an experiment actually works or they master a formula. But he is also finding the life of a teacher to be almost monk-like — every day he walks out of the building at 3:00 each day and drives home in his beat-up Honda Civic to a tiny studio apartment on the fringes of the city. He reads the lab reports, prepares the lesson plans, then reads until he goes to bed.

And then he starts all over again the next day.

He knows he should go out and try to meet someone — after all, in college it had been so easy to at least to find other male friends, to find kindred spirits who shared his love of learning. But so often he found himself on the sidelines as they all spun through a revolving door of relationships and hook-ups. If Combeferre was ever with a man he found attractive, he would either clam up completely, or start babbling about any subject he could think of — about moths, or where the dictionary developed, or about whatever obscure philosopher he was reading at the time.

And most of the time, the man would slink away at the first possible opportunity.

His best friend, his college roommate Courfeyrac, who worked as a successful attorney in the city, has tried setting him up with various friends or colleagues. But the dates all ended the same way — with an awkward hugs and a promise to call.

A call that would never come.

"You’re a good looking man. You’re funny, you’re smart — I don’t get it," Courfeyrac would say to him when they got together on weekends at a local bar, where Combeferre would watch as men came over to their table and started talking to Courfeyrac as if Combeferre was invisible.

Combeferre shrugs. He isn’t sure exactly what to do — how to meet men, how to talk to men, how to feel as comfortable with people as he is with his books. What is does know is that the nights are too long and his apartment is too quiet, and he wants someone who will go to bookstores with him, who will rescue him from his own poor cooking, who will keep him from living too much inside his own head.

Combeferre is lonely.

And he doesn’t want to feel lonely anymore.

**

Grantaire teaches art.

He’s the kind of teacher the kids love — he lets them choose the music he plays while they work on their projects in the art room, and he’s the shoulder they cry on when a boyfriend doesn’t return a text or a best friend suddenly stops speaking to them.

Too bad they can’t give him advice in return.

Grantaire had known he was going to be an art teacher for years. He loves creating art himself — adores the feel of a brush in his hand, the smell of oil paints and turpentine, the sight of a freshly gessoed canvas just begging for a stroke of color. But in his cynic’s way, he had always known there was no way he could make a living as an artist.

So he majored in art education, telling his friends of his firm belief that those who couldn’t do, taught.

His college boyfriend Enjolras had scoffed at him, encouraging him to aim higher, to set more lofty goals.

They had been together for most of their college years — indeed, Grantaire couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t love Enjolras, a political science student from a wealthy family whose passions for progressive activism captured Grantaire’s imagination from the first moment they met as freshmen.

Grantaire had loved Enjolras — indeed, he still loves him now. Even now he finds himself sketching his face as he sits in meetings, remembering what it was like to watch him sleeping beside him as the full moon cast its light on his pale countenance.

But Enjolras had loved his causes more — and when college was over, they had parted ways.

He is in Washington now, Grantaire knows, although he doesn’t know exactly where or what he’s doing. In the years since their break-up, Grantaire spends his spare time brooding or drinking or going out with his best friend Prouvaire and picking up men in bars. He knows how to play the game — how to talk, how to flirt, how to give them that sideways glance that indicates he’s available. Grantaire goes home with lots of different men — never the same one twice — and after a cup of coffee the next morning, they disappear into the ether, leaving Grantaire alone with his brushes and his booze.

Grantaire is lonely.

And he doesn’t want to feel lonely anymore.

**

Art and science doesn’t meet very often at this school — the art rooms are on the opposite side of the building from the chemistry labs, so the two different departments really only meet when the whole faculty meets once a month, on a Wednesday afternoon when the students are released early.

At the first meeting of the school year, the principal asks them to pair up for a getting to know you activity. The teachers all hate it — we’re all adults, they think, we can figure out how to talk to each other — but they roll their eyes and follow orders.

Combeferre hates these activities, knowing he’ll have to endure the bored looks from a colleague when he begins rambling.

Grantaire hates these activities, knowing he’ll have to endure the disdainful looks from a colleague who thinks art is a useless frill.

But at that first meeting, they are paired together — two men who have worked in the same building for three years, but who had never really said more than a polite hello.

Combeferre notices Grantaire’s piercing blue eyes.

Grantaire notices Combeferre’s gentle smile.

And they begin to talk.

They don’t follow the rules, don’t play the game as it’s been explained to them — they just start to share about themselves. They speak of science, of art. Of their students. Of how they got to where they are. And of their mundane plans for the weekend.

Combeferre mentions how his friend Courfeyrac has set him up on a date, but how he doesn’t want to go.

Grantaire mentions how his friend Prouvaire keeps telling him he needs to forget Enjolras.

And now each knows the other is single. And looking.

Combeferre feels remarkable ease with Grantaire, an ease he’s never felt with anyone other than his beloved Courfeyrac. The words come out with an eloquence he rarely demonstrates unless he’s at the front of the classroom. Combeferre sees a man whose initial body language seems calculated to give off the impression he doesn’t care — but as Combeferre speaks, he notices Grantaire watching him with his head cocked, his lips pursed and his brow furrowed, listening intently to every word.

Grantaire is intrigued by this tall, pale, brilliant man, seeing in him the same passion demonstrated by his beloved Enjolras. But he can tell, even in the brief time they’ve talked, that he’s different from Enjolras. Less severe, he thinks, more humane. Grantaire wants to pull back, wants to be skeptical and detached and make a self-deprecating joke — but he can’t bring himself to do it.

Their time together flies by, and when the group comes back together they retreat to their different corners. But neither one can resist sneaking glances at each other like the teenage couples in their classes do, both wondering why they’d never noticed each other before.

And hoping they will be able to talk again.

**

The opportunity to talk comes soon enough, when the next week they run into each in the faculty parking lot on the way out of school on a Friday afternoon. It feels more awkward this time — Combeferre keeps shifting his backpack onto his shoulder nervously and Grantaire focuses on a blotch of paint on his sneakers as they chat about mundane, school-related topics.

But they come away from the conversation with an agreement to meet for dinner at a local wine bar the following night, where they consume two entire bottles of wine and have to be asked to leave when it’s closing time.

Outside the restaurant, as they make their way to their cars, Combeferre is feeling the effects of the wine — he doesn’t normally drink a lot, so his tolerance is low and his head is abuzz. Grantaire senses from Combeferre’s stagger that there is no way he’ll make it home, and offers to drive him back to his apartment — it makes sense, really, and Grantaire doesn’t really want the evening to end anyway.

As Grantaire drives, he looks over at Combeferre, who is leaning against the door, letting the autumn breeze cool his flushed cheeks. Maybe this is his second chance, he muses to himself. Maybe with Combeferre the self-loathing and guilt will finally go away.

Or maybe it won’t.

But he really wants to find out.

When they arrive back at Combeferre’s apartment, Combeferre is starting to get his legs back underneath him. His brain is starting to whir at its normal frequency, but his tongue is still loose.

And before he can stop to think about it, he invites Grantaire upstairs.

**

Their coupling is quick and desperate — they’re both so eager to fill their emptiness with each other that they don’t even make it to the bed, tumbling together on the floor of the living room, their backs and knees and palms burning from the friction of the berber carpet.

And as they lie next to each other on the floor afterwards, half-dressed and breathing heavily, they look over at each other.

Grantaire laughs.

Combeferre smiles.

And neither man feels quite so lonely anymore.


End file.
